Dragons
by zarlish-dragons
Summary: Harry and Charlie are connected by more then just Ron’s brotherhood and friendship. Their connection runs much deeper. Soulmate AU. Starts when Harry is underage.


The first time Charlie Weasley saw Harry Potter, it was a byproduct of picking up an illegal dragon. Henry, one of his helpers, had just told a particularly amusing joke and as a result they were all roaring with laughter with tears in their eyes as the Astronomy Tower came into view.

He and Mai, another tamer and possibly his second best friend next to Tonks, were sober enough by the time they were hovering outside of the tower to land their brooms appropriately and clamber inside as silently as they could.

They succeeded in getting into the tower, silently, not so much. Mai immediately went to the dragon and began to coo softly at it, whilst calling Hudson and Henry to the large opening to secure the large box that Norbert was being held in. Henry and the other man offered up their harnesses so that she could secure those corners first, then dragged her and Charlie's brooms over to bind the other two.

Meanwhile, Charlie went over to where Hermione and Harry stood watching the process with interest. He shook each of their hands in turn, and thanked them for turning in the dragon and agreeing to meet them there.

Charlie did notice something odd, however. When he had shaken the black haired boy's hand, instead of him smiling warily like the bushy haired girl beside him, he had winced ever so slightly. So subtly, in fact, that Charlie nearly missed it. Only years of concealing his own pain and injuries from his mother made him able to tell.

His smile didn't falter, however. He shot a last cocky grin to the two of them and went to go join the three other impatient dragon tamers. The last thing he saw as the four of them took to the sky was the bright glint of moonlight on Harry Potter's glasses.

The next time the two opposite boys met, it was under much more normal circumstances. At least for Charlie. It was a year later, about a fortnight until term started (well for six Weasleys anyway).

It was not meant to be a big visit, simply one to see his family; it was a year since he'd visited on terms other than Christmas dinner. Even then he had left two days after. He had gone hoping for a week full of his mother's excellent cooking, small quidditch games with his brothers, and of course to see his only sister. He'd incorporate his father in there somehow, he had thought to himself laughing.

His room was also a plus. Over the years it had gathered dust and a neglected feel to it as neither he nor Bill had come to stay in the last seven months or so. The bedroom looked like it had been frozen in time though. His posters of moving players advertising various teams still hung on the walls. Pictures of cursed landmarks and objects and various egyptian curse books were scattered messily around Bill's bed, models and posters of dragons on Charlie's. His old dragon leather gloves were still on the small table that he and Bill shared, one of the thumbs nearly hanging by a thread. The chipped blue water pitcher that used to be on the table was still there as well. Everything was going to be perfect; certainly no surprises were to be expected.

This is why he was pleasantly amused on the third day of his visit when he woke up the crack of dawn to the angry shrieks of Molly Weasley. The twins had been looking especially shifty the day before, this was probably the reason for his anger.

Fumbling for clean jeans and a t-shirt, he quickly dressed, glancing forlornly at Bill's empty bed beside his own. He knew the oldest Weasley brother had a kind of gift for calming their mother down. Quickly brushing back his chin-length hair whilst adjusting his shirt, he walked out to the front yard to see what had gotten Molly's knickers in a twist this time.

Charlie rapidly panned the situation and snorted when he took in the twins, Ron, and Harry's slightly sheepish looks that seemed to still be competing with a rush of adrenaline for whatever they had just done.

Mrs Weasley was still yelling, but losing steam. Charlie sighed and walked over, placing a hand on her shoulder and whispered into her ear to wait until father woke up. She huffed and threw a last malevolent look over her shoulder that could have withered grass, and watched in satisfaction as all four boys winced.

He watched her back retreat into the house and started in himself.

"Dont think shes forgotten!" Charlie yelled over his shoulder. "She's just waiting for reinforcements. Then she'll pounce."

And pounce she did. After Round 2 of Getting-mad-because-you-left-the-house-with-no-note-and-took-the-car-with-you yelling had subsided, breakfast was continued as normal, with the slight exception of when George asked his mother to pass the salt and she gave him such a glare he lost all interest in it and ate his eggs unseasoned.

Other than that, Molly warmed considerably. She made small talk to most of the table and hovered over Harry the entire time, making sure he was perfectly content. Even Percy came down to shake Harry's hand before stealing some kippers and bacon and retreating back to his room.

Perhaps most surprising of all was the appearance of Ginny Weasley, of course blushing profusely the entire time. After her bowl of porridge's third attempt at dying, she made her excuses and bolted up the staircase stealing one last fleeting look at Harry Potter.

By then, the whole family was chuckling save for a disapproving Molly Weasley and the Boy Who Lived himself whose face was a red to rival Ginny's. Charlie just clapped him on the shoulder and laughed hardest of all. The small action caused Harry's stomach to drop. He ignored it. Probably just the sheer feeling of being clapped by someone who barely knew their own strength, he thought bemused.

Soon, the plates were cleared away and Ron challenged them to a game of quidditch on the small meadow by the hill Harry was the first to respond, nearly jumping up from the table in joy.

Ron, the twins, Harry, and Charlie grabbed their brooms and began the few minutes' time walk to the field. They laughed and joked the whole way, pushing each other playfully. Harry was reminded of a question he had thought of when Ron had told him Charlie's age the last year.

"Charlie?"

"Yeah?" the second oldest Weasley glanced at him warily. "What is it?"

"How come you left Hogwarts in the sixth year?"

Charlie laughed. "Oh that's easy," he said, "I knew I wanted to pursue dragons and when I was offered a position at the reserve at 16, I saw no point in continuing my other education. Also, I was dumb." he laughed a bit.

"So, all brawns and no brain?" Harry said without thinking. He heard Ron yell something indistinct. "Oh, bloody hell, I'm so sorry!" he exclaimed, covering his mouth with his free hand.

Charlie was silent for a minute and then: "I'll prove it to you," without any further warning he shouldered his broom and swept a confused Harry Potter onto his other shoulder in a fireman's lift and, laughing, he raced the other three boys to the top of the hill. He stopped there, tilted his head back and rolled his shoulder a bit to get closer to Harry's ear with his mouth.

"This is what you get for cheek," he whispered jokingly into Harry's red ear. Harry didn't reply. He didn't trust himself to. The others soon caught up, and Ron nearly gasping with laughter stumbled drunkenly to Charlie and told him to "pudimdow".

"Sorry, I didn't get that," Charlie smirked, shifting his shoulder to get a better grip on Harry.

"You know what the protocol is for Weasley cheek,"

"Come on Charlie, you barely know Harry, how do you think he's responding to this?" Ron frowned, he and his brothers knew that even of they wanted to, they couldn't get Harry down. Charlie had magic and giant muscles on his side.

"Oh all right," Charlie huffed. He gently flipped Harry upside again one-handed and set him down on his feet. The boy in question swayed alarmingly, thrown by the sudden rush of blood leaving his head.

"Easy there," Charlie mumbled, putting a hand on Harry's back to steady him.

"What'do that for?" Harry asked, looking at him. To his surprise, one of the twins spoke. Fred?

"After Charlie here came back from Romania, he had these new additions," (he smirked, gesturing at Charlie's obvious fitness) "and dad said the same thing that you did to him. If you'll believe me, he picked Dad right up over his shoulder and dumped him down on the couch, laughing the whole time." Fred was beginning to smile now, "Since then, well, you obviously know," he smirked again.

Harry nodded and grabbed his still warm broom that was still on Charlie's shoulder with his broom and went to join Ron who was already halfway down the hill.

"Your family always like this?" he muttered.

"Afraid so," Ron responded with a laugh. "Although, that's just Charlie's quirk. Except for that, which he still finds reason to do every once in a while, he's a very easy going guy. Certainly the most in our family," he added as an afterthought. "You just said the wrong thing is all."

"Did I ever," Harry groaned. Ron chuckled but made no comment.

Several minutes later, two teams had been established, George and Harry against Ron and Charlie, Fred preferring to be a lone beater with a flower Charlie had bewitched to act like a bludger. George and Ron were chasers with Charlie and Harry although the latter were also playing seeker at the same time.

With a sharp whistle on George's part, the five pushed, hard, off the ground and took to the air. After a couple dozen games of Harry catching the snitch about the same number of times as Charlie, they both agreed their skills were hindered by their extra playing duties.

All five of them lay down in the grass heaving with breaths and barely five minutes later Ron asked to try Harry nodded to him for the okay and watched in amusement as the twins and Charlie took turns with Ron with the broom, laughing along with the others when Fred nearly collided with a stray robin. He soon joined in, and after nearly half an hour, the five gasping boys collapsed onto the hill sitting in comfortable silence.

"Merlin am I starving," George complained, to the agreement of Ron's stomach. "I can almost smell the sandwich waiting for me," Fred sighed.

"Erm, actually, is it alright if I borrow your snitch for just a little while longer?" Harry asked tentatively, not quite ready to stop flying.

"S'okay with you, Charlie?" Ron asked, looking over at his older brother who was laying on his back.

"Yeah yeah. In fact, mind if I join you, Harry?" he sat up, causing his hair to fall haphazardly around his face. He impatiently blew them away, and looked sideways at Harry, who was watching the bright red strands with interest.

"Harry?" Fred prompted.

"Oh right, sure, if you feel like losing," Harry grinned. Charlie threw his head back and roared with laughter. Harry noticed how Charlie's neck was exposed when he laughed. It was a rather nice neck too, Harry thought to himself, he wondered what it would taste like... he blinked. Woah. Where had that come from?

Shaking himself mentally, he he helped pull up the twins, though regretted the actions almost instantly when both took it upon themselves to kiss Harry on the cheek 'for all his troubles'.

"Come on you too, Harry'll think it's you two who's bent and not Charlie," Ron laughed and and shoved them down the hill, throwing their brooms after them. "Sorry Harry!" and with that he was gone, leaving Harry alone with his own very conflicted and confused thoughts, and an overly amused Charlie Weasley.

"You're…?" Harry said weakly, turning to the other boy.

"Gay?" he said, now smiling even wider, "I should hope so, otherwise I'll have to apologize to all my exes for dating them on false orientation assumptions." he took in Harry's expression and sighed. "What are you thinking? If you think I'm gonna jump you or something 'cause you're a readily available boy and we're alone… squash that thought. I have a boyfriend." Harry smiled.

"Too bad, I really thought we had hit it off there for a second…" he trailed off, grinning at Charlie. He looked… annoyed? "Look kid, I've got maybe three quarters of an hour before I need food. We gonna play, or what?"

Harry blinked. What had he done? They were fine one second, the next they were practically glaring at each other. "All right then," he said just as cooly, "try to keep up."

He mounted his broom and pushed off the ground. Their indifference was quickly forgotten though, when they started flying. The cold wind stung their faces as they flew, soon falling into an easy rhythm, both looking for the snitch, after ten minutes of flying in silence, Harry spotted the snitch and dove for it, rolling out of it gracefully. He stuck it into his pocket and looked forCharlie, who was hovering in the air, clearly waiting for him to release the snitch again.

Harry flew over and awkwardly hovered, wondering where to begin. He was saved the trouble.

"It's okay, you don't have to apologize. I over- reacted. I just… what I said about the jumping thing, I interpreted your expression that way. I'm so sick of having to remind people that just because I'm bent doesn't mean I'll do any boy. Especially not my little brother's twelve year old best friend," he snorted. Harry let out a relieved breath, but felt a weird twinge of hurt. "I know you wouldn't I was just surprised, is all. Are we good?" "We're good," Charlie laughed, leaning over the two brooms to hug Harry, ignoring the outstretched hand. Harry let out an indignant squeak. "You're right," Charlie agreed, nodding, "next time we'll just shake. You smell bad."

He laughed again at Harry's amused expression and pointed to the boy's pocket. "Are we playing… or….?" Harry shook himself. "Yeah," he grinned and took out the snitch. "At twenty seconds."

They waited patiently for a few seconds, before Harry suddenly blurted, "wait!"

"Yeah?" Charlie looked back at him, an eyebrow raised.

Harry swallowed thickly and nearly whispered, "How did you... how...?" He trailed off.

"Know I was gay?" Charlie asked, surprised. Harry nodded. The other boy just shrugged. He began slowly, choosing his words carefully.

"When you're young, you don't really know it's even possible to like the same gender. You don't actually seek out the other gender, either. When I was little, I never got into girls, but, of course, I never looked at the boys because I just... didn't know I could." He swallowed. "In fourth... in fourth year there was this boy, who I couldn't stop looking at. I wanted to be a part of his life, to talk to him, to have him look at me the way I had seen some couples do. Like I had hung the sun." He paused, thought.

"He moved away. But I never forgot the feeling. The feeling that I just never had for girls, I guess." He looked at Harry sideways and cocked his head. "There's no hurry," he whispered. "Everyone goes at their own pace, and whatever you find out about yourself is perfectly okay."

Clearing his throat, he looked pointedly at the snitch in Harry's hand. "At twenty."

He didn't give Harry a chance to respond, but the other boy just looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding.

He released the small golden ball and they watched as it hesitated for a moment then flitted off. They counted mentally to twenty and took off after it. Harry felt himself being pushed to his limits; Charlie was just that good. He attempted harder moves, getting riskier and riskier.

The snitch flew directly next to his ear. Without thinking, he served and chased after it. He could see Charlie zooming in from the side to intercept, and he instinctively leaned forward, flattening himself onto his broom. They both reached forward, hands outstretched perfectly even because of Charlie's stocky stature and Harry's long one. They were so close… Harry's broom gave one last burst of speed and his fingers closed around the tiny ball.

He heard Charlie swear soundly behind him, and he turned around, hovering slightly above him, smirking.

"What's the matter?" he asked cheekily. His smile faltered when the boy made no sound or move, simply stared at him. Then Charlie laughed. "You've got nerve kid, I'll give you that. Come on, let's go. Lunch is waiting."

The two boys set off together, never letting a single minute escape to the dark claws of silence. Their laughter could be heard down at the Burrow; the wind was just so, and they were being too loud anyway. They decided they didn't care.

As Harry lay in bed that night, he ran over the events of the afternoon in his mind. It had been fun, spending time with Charlie. The older boy intrigued him. Not that they had been best buds, of course. They had gone their separate ways once at the Burrow and neither of them had done anything to change that. Harry had gone back to Ron, and Charlie went to go harass Percy with the twins.

As he lie awake, though, he kept going back to a few incidents that made no sense as to why he would be thinking about them.

The first was when the red-haired boy had slung him over his shoulder carelessly, as if he picked up near strangers all the time. What scared Harry the most was how much he like it. He had enjoyed the feel of the warm man beneath him. Charlie's soft hair had been in his face, but instead of being annoyed, he had felt far from it. He like how the little strands tickled his stomach ever so softly from where his shirt rode up a bit. Most of all, he had liked the feel of Charlie's back and shoulder muscles working beneath him. He was just so strong.

The other incident that had come to mind was a very different one. It was when Charlie had confirmed he was gay. When Charlie had misinterpreted Harry's expression, Harry had felt something inside him nearly shatter. That was the opposite of what Harry was thinking. In reality he had been thinking about how what Charlie's orientation was, the way he described it, it sounded a lot like… him.

Charlie didn't go to sleep for a very, very, long time. He ran the day's events over in his head again, snorting particularly hard whenever the boys' struck faces came to mind. However, it was becoming increasingly hard to focus on small mundane moments like that. A few particular memories hovered on the edge of his consciousness, not unlike a mosquito's buzz in your ear in the summer. He sighed and let himself remember freely. He knew he wasn't going to like it, but they were his thoughts and plus, there was no fighting it, he thought quietly to himself. He closed his eyes.

All the Weasley's no matter who you were, knew that Charlie had an interesting way of reciprocating to comments about his strength and mind being compared. It wasn't that he wasn't smart, he was. He was just more known for his brawn.

This is why when Harry had said that, Charlie only hesitated for a second before lifting him up over his shoulder. It had felt different, somehow. It had felt good. Like, like, Memory Charlie grasped for something to compare it to. It was like when Charlie for the first time tried flying on a broom. He had been barely seven, and the feeling he had gotteon was that of a missing part of him had finally been found. He felt the beginnings of that feeling and it fucking scared him.

The smaller boy's shirt had ridden up a little, exposing a stretch of tanned skin right on Charlie's collar bone. It was soft and it wasn't until he was forced to set the boy down could he properly breathe again.

The memory changed. He had a feeling this one was worse.

Harry Potter had just caught the snitch, and was smirking in that way that made Charlie want to punch something. Harry was hovering slightly above Charlie, the slightly past peak sun framed behind him. His soft unruly black hair lay whip-lashed in tangles, a lone tuft cupping his ear. His wide, bespectacled, bottle green eyes glinted with mirth. He looked so innocent, so fragile, so small. But he glowed with something that made people's heads stop and turn, to see the wonder that was Harry Potter.

A second ago, Charlie had been annoyed, but now he could only muster up awe. The boy was fucking beautiful.

Harry's grin faltered. He realized Charlie was looking at him. One of them said something. Charlie couldn't remember who.

The scene changed yet again. The last memory.

The two had been walking back to the Burrow when Harry's twelve-year-old self piped up, "Charlie?" he had asked.

"Yes?"

"Race you," he said in the same innocent voice, then flat-out sprinted the rest of the way. Charlie had chased after him and, luckily for his dignity, only lost by a few seconds.

"Git," he had said, ruffling Harry's hair. They both forgot all about it quickly as they sat down to eat lunch far away from each other without noticing.

His mind decided to try to fall asleep.

And that, Charlie realized semi-consciously, was that.


End file.
